of his cigarette, blowing the smoke through his wide, blunt nostrils. His brow crinkled and Bolan knew he’d touched a raw nerve. “The pitiful excuse for lawmen in this damned city claim that she was jumped by soccer hooligans. The thugs broke Catherine to pieces, and she lingered in a hospital for the last of her days.”
Catherine Alexandronin was not a name on the Stony Man watch-list database, but Bolan cursed himself for not keeping an eye out for her. He had last known her as Catherine Rozuika, a TASS journalist who had helped Bolan and Alexandronin derail an effort to turn back the democratic processes of the early Commonwealth of independent states. The hard-liners were not willing to give way to the end of the old Soviet Republic and freely and blatantly killed anyone in their path. The Executioner had stopped the plot and through his Stony Man contacts, had arranged for a new life for the pair in London.
Catherine had been a beautiful woman. Back then, Bolan had enjoyed a few moments of tenderness with the lady reporter. The news of her death by a brutal beating was like a knife in the soldier’s heart. Something, though, had sparked Alexandronin’s paranoia. “You said the police ‘claimed.’ You don’t buy that story.”
Alexandronin knocked back his glass of vodka. “The law looks at the ambush of an investigative reporter as just another case of drunk sports fans. But this was not the work of alcohol-besotted misanthropes.”
A stack of photos plopped in front of Bolan and he leafed through them, studying the photographic records taken at the emergency room and during her autopsy. Bolan’s sharp mind already spotted inconsistencies between the police reports and reality.
“Pay attention to the broken right arm,” Alexandronin said.
“The end result of a standard Spetsnaz cross-forearm disarmament snap,” Bolan replied. “Using one limb as a fulcrum, the gun hand is deflected, the force shattering the ulnar bones. Catherine was armed, and she pulled her weapon to defend herself.”
“We have enemies,” Alexandronin replied. “Mere hooligans would have just picked up the gun and shot her with it.”
“They were sending a message,” Bolan suggested. “Stop snooping. Question is, what was she snooping into?”
“The newspaper she worked for ‘misplaced’ her most recent notes,” Alexandronin added. “None of her coworkers will even stay in the same room as I am in.”
Alexandronin opened his shirt. A bloody bandage was on his upper chest. “I’m still snooping and I nearly caught all six inches of the blade that did this.”
“You find out anything about what she was looking into?” Bolan asked as the man buttoned his shirt.
“It was initially a fluff piece, allegedly, talking to Chechen refugees who had emigrated here to England. They’re trying to escape the troubles back home,” Alexandronin answered. “But she confided in me that the refugees were scared.”
“Of the Russian government or their own people?” Bolan asked. “Chechen rebels are hardly saints, even if the world is admitting that Moscow is longing for the good old days of the cold war.”
“Russia has changed some, but not enough,” Alexandronin said. He poured himself a fresh shot of vodka, then hammered it down in one gulp. “There is a group in Moscow, a highly trained antiterrorism special branch.”
“They call themselves the Curved Knife,” Bolan mused. He flicked a tower of ashes off his untouched cigarette. “Doesn’t take too much imagination to see that the Curved Knife is an allusion to the old Sickle that crossed the Hammer as the symbol of the Communist party.”
“The Sickle symbolism is not lost on anyone who’s aware of them,” Alexandronin said. “They are no more than the midnight knockers from the old days of the KGB. They are the same type of bastards who picked up those considered unfaithful to the Party and helped them to disappear.”
“Usually with a bullet in the head, and a trip to the bottom of a bulldozed pit,” Bolan added. He took a token puff on the cigarette, washing the foul taste away with the bitter liquor. He looked down at the glass, then held it out for Alexandronin to refill.
“The stuff grows on you,” the Russian noted with a chuckle, pouring another round.
“Helps to keep the bad taste of this news out of my mouth,” Bolan answered. “Catherine lived a few days after the beating?”
Alexandronin nodded. “She never recovered consciousness. Internal hemorrhaging finally took its toll. I told the doctors to pull the plug. Russians live, or Russians die. The limbo of being trapped in a coma is neither, and it traps the soul in a broken sack of flesh.”
Bolan nodded. “She never said anything about what happened to her in that case.”
Alexandronin sighed. “She didn’t even say goodbye. Not out loud.”
He pushed an envelope toward Bolan. The name “Mike” was scrawled on the front, a reference to his old identity of Mike Belasko, long since discarded. In the dive, its scene of strawberries was an island of freshness. “She wrote one for me, as well, my friend. I didn’t look at yours.”
Bolan glanced down at the slender envelope, then sliced it open with his pocketknife. Catherine’s strawberry-scented perfume filled his nostrils, bringing him back to their time together, entwined in each other’s limbs. There was a small, folded slip of paper within.
“‘My soldier, I could never replace your lost rose. May you someday find peace, and never forget the night we shared. Cat.’”
Bolan folded the slip and put it back in its envelope. He fought off the heartache those simple words left in their wake. He met Alexandronin’s gaze.
“It was never a secret that you two had been lovers,” the Russian told him. “That didn’t mean she was less of a devoted wife to me.”
“I feel your pain, Vitaly,” Bolan told him. “And I’ll help find her murderers.”
“No, comrade. I will help you,” Alexandronin replied. “My race is nearly run, and I miss Catherine far too much to want to live in a world without her.”
“That’s the melancholy talking, Vitaly,” Bolan said, but not too forcefully. “Keep her memory alive.”
Alexandronin’s attention was seized by movement at the door. His hand slid off the table, resting on his belly, just above his belt line. Bolan looked at the reflection of the two men in the surface of the vodka bottle. They both had Slavic features and were dressed in black. Their hawk-sharp eyes scanned the bar patrons, seeking out their designated prey.
“I assume you are armed, Mikhail,” Alexandronin said.
Bolan nodded. “The two at the front are just the flush team. If we cut through the back, we’ll run straight into the trap team.”
“Sharp as always, my friend,” Alexandronin mused. “So we go through those two?”
“Provided they don’t have someone hanging back behind them. They could be supported by another trap team or even snipers,” Bolan said. “That’s how I’d do it if I were setting this trap.”
“So what is our plan?” Alexandronin asked.
“Let
